Hibernation For 3.5 Million Years, It Turns Out That This Largest Comet Is Heading Towards Earth

While. NOIRLab / NSF / AURA / J. Da Silva

JAKARTA - A large comet is hurtling towards the Solar System, with an estimated arrival time of 10 years from now or 2031. This comet has a length of 100 kilometers.

The comet, known as comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein or C/2014 UN271, is 1,000 times larger than a regular comet. The object is moving rapidly through the Oort cloud, a vast pile of ice, and is billions of miles from Earth.

It appears that the comet has a luminous tail, or coma, a clear indication that the icy comet is approaching the relatively warm inner Solar System. Bernardinelli Bernstein is so massive that astronomers previously mistook it for a dwarf planet heading toward the Sun, according to a statement announcing the comet's discovery in June 2021.

According to researchers quoted from Live Science, Saturday, October 9, Bernardinelli-Bernstein is currently crossing the Oort cloud with about 29 times the distance between Earth and the Sun, or 29 astronomical units (AU). The comet's closest approach to Earth will occur around 2031, when scientists predict the comet will dive within 10.97 AU of the Sun, placing it just beyond Saturn's orbit.

However, the comet will pose no threat to Earth. Probably, the comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein will only pass between the orbits of Saturn and Uranus.

After modeling the comet's trajectory, researchers calculated that comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein made its last approach 3.5 million years ago, coming within 18 AU of the Sun. Since then, the comet has traveled as far as 40,000 AU, deep into the mysterious Oort cloud.

However, since the last approach occurred 3.5 million years ago, no human has ever seen it. So astronomers say that comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein is a new comet.

"We conclude that Bernardinelli-Bernstein is a new comet, in the sense that there is no evidence for a previous approach closer than 18 AU", the researchers said.

Meanwhile, the NOIRLab report states that BB is the most distant comet found in its path of entry. This gave researchers years to watch it evolve as it approached the Sun.

For information, the discovery of this comet occurred during a project called the Dark Energy Survey, which aims to study the expansion of the universe. Astronomers have discovered more than 800 previously unknown objects beyond the orbit of Neptune, and one of them is the comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein.